What's Junk? (The Mech Touch)

[lost star]

Lilly had downtime at the moment. It felt unusual. She didn't get that. She'd never gotten that. There was always something to do. Now there wasn't. Even piloting would be just her playing around. It wouldn't be useful. She could still pilot of course, but she wouldn't get anything out of it until Dowry was updated. She couldn't even bother Bolt! The young man was extremely busy trying to cram as much information as possible into his head to update Dowry!

About the only thing she had in the near future was a small escort mission with Dowry to bring some mechs in, and that promised to be a cakewalk. Everyone on the planet was sort of laying low at the moment in an attempt to figure out what was going to change. Lilly wasn't ashamed to admit she was wondering the same thing. She couldn't even recruit or train people yet. Things were in too much flux.

For a person who's spent their life moving from action to action, this moment of stillness felt unpleasant.

Identifying and squashing that issue was therefore her first step to keeping occupied. Lilly was living life on her own terms. A flaw in her behavior was a blockage just as much as anything else. Fortunately the need for action was just the little girl in her wanting to go zoom zoom. She wasn't that anymore.

Some meditation came first. Spending a few hours focusing on herself and her newfound willpower would help her come to terms to her new existence. There was a distinct presence inside her that she needed to feel out and measure. Her willpower she assumed. It was likely going to be an ongoing process that she'd take her time with. Every day she'd spent some time identifying the feel of it.

After that she decided to roam around. The new fortress was big! And rather empty, as she'd found. There was a lot unused. It'd been designed as a small city, and they had enough for a small town. It'd fill out eventually, but for now roaming was just running through empty stone hallways. Pretty boring and something she gave up after exploring another empty room.

Piloting all of Bolt's mechs was the next attempt at keeping occupied. Lilly hadn't tried the Shining Shrine Maiden, or Cerberus. Both of them needed to be put through their paces!

It was only after she'd nearly caused the poor dog she was piloting to break that Lilly figured out she was being a bit too maniac. Cerberus hadn't deserved what she'd done with it. There was a difference between stress testing and just ruining the things. She'd gotten far closer to the latter than she was comfortable with. The dogs were fun though. They felt dependable. Sometimes you needed that in a mech. Not everything needed to be cutting edge impossible to pilot things.

Trying to squish bad impulses was harder than it sounded. Lacking any other ideas, she started to roam again and eventually found herself in one of the more protected areas. That was how she'd ended up in the nursery and helping to watch over the kids. It wasn't something most experts would do, but he she wasn't most experts.

The Wrench Rats practiced communal childcare. Their schedules were, put politely erratic. This combined with the fact that many people thought targeting their children was a valid tactic meant that they'd found it easiest to put the younger kids in the most fortified areas possible and assign a few minders to manage it all. The kids were frequently brought out to help with various chores in more trying times, but they had a nice central area to have their lessons and care done.

Lilly was very harshly reminded that this option wasn't available to her yet as she helped with a few minor things. She could not have children until she had money. She made a mental note to get back to researching later. Until then, dipper changing, burping, and helping the older children with lessons. (The caregivers had protested, but experts got what they wanted.)

Gadget was the oldest of the group at the moment. The older ones had started to migrate to their own rooms as they became able to do work. The girl seemed disinclined to. She was more concerned with her lessons, much like Bolt. Watching her go through them was mildly entertaining. The girl was just as focused as her brother. Lilly had ended up nearby the girl once she'd settled down and dealt with all the more obvious chores.

"Mom said you were an expert now." The words came in between lessons once she realized that Lilly was sticking around.

Lilly nodded slowly and gave the other kids a look. They were all on their best behavior at the moment amusingly enough. It wasn't even something she'd done. They were just playing nicely.

Gadget continued without looking up from her learning pad. "You gonna keep us safe?"

"That's something I'll certainly focus on." Lilly immediately tried to reassure the girl with a wide smile and a flex.

"Good, smash em." Gadget replied and started up another lesson. "Make their mechs junk."

"Ain't gotta worry about that." The expert pilot confirmed. "Anyone that'd think about hurting our family would get smashed." She promised easily. That was one promise she wanted to keep.

"Good. Less mechs the better." The little girl mumbled.

Words like that were quite unusual and made Lilly hone her senses in on the girl. "You don't like mechs?" She asked.

The emotions the child displayed were startling in their purity, if not in the intensity. Gadget had opinions and she wasn't shy about voicing them. "Don't like them." There was genuine hate there.

"And why not?" The expert prodded.

Gadget closed in on herself a bit and pulled her lesson pad closer as she looked away. "Just don't." She said softly.

Lilly nodded with cheer very obvious on her face. "That's perfectly fine. You don't have to like them." She encouraged in a similarly soft tone. "You're a smart girl. We can find other things to do."

Those words got her to look up to meet the older woman's eyes. Upon seeing that Lilly seemed sincere Gadget relaxed slightly and held up her current lesson. Lilly felt her eyebrows raise.

"Spaceships?" She asked back.

"We need some, daddy said. I'll build them!" The young girl nodded. "Not mechs." She continued with a nod.

For a brief moment Lilly blanked on what to say. There were issues with her desire. However, she was an expert. Thinking quickly was part of that. Using her newly found powers to figure out the best words to say to a child was probably not exactly what they were for, but they'd do it anyway!

"I look forward to seeing them then." Lilly praised the young girl. "Be sure to build the best ships ever!"

That got the girl to preen and she began to go over the ships she was learning on. Lilly was pretty sure that the lessons were CFA approved rather than MTA approved, but they weren't bad ones by any means. She just wasn't sure why the tiny tot had gotten into them.

A few discrete checks had her find out that the Wrench Rats had paid a premium for an early self-guided educational system. It was meant to ferret out and encourage specific talents in children. Gadget had apparently expressed a disdain for mechs and a liking for science and then gotten into the CFA programs. They weren't nearly as popular as the MTA things, and were kind of offensive to a pilot, but the little girl seemed to like them. Ship building was a respectable position, so it wasn't like Gadget was doing a bad thing. It was just sort of, well different.

Somehow Lilly was quite sure that Gadget was going to be just as large a terror as her brother, just in a different way. She had to wonder what the girl's parents had eaten? Whatever it was, she wanted some for her own children, when they could come about.

Still needed that money. Lilly admittedly didn't want children right this moment, but she had a goal. She wouldn't have her choices taken by anyone, including her own body.

 

[lost star]

You'd think they'd be less busy now. They weren't. They were in fact becoming more busy. It was just a contained sort of thing if that made any sense. Their current goal was a party. Which, well sounded strange to say out loud. It was a political party that all the Wrench Rats and Lilly would hate. It had to be done. Officially it was a celebration of their marriage and Lilly's ascension. Unofficially, it was going to be a sort of bow to the other nations. They'd invite a few of the more important people, and political shit was going to happen.

Before then, Bolt wanted to get Dowry situated. If he could make her a mostly expert mech, everyone would have a lot less leverage. This wasn't a feasible task on the face of it. Getting education in how to build an expert mech took study. It took specialized courses that weren't publicly available. It was in essence something that only well educated and connected people could learn.

It was possible for him to learn anyway though. He'd learn it the same way he learned how to make mechs. He'd learn from their trash. He'd take two of their mechs apart and learn from their failures. His hope was that would give him enough to work off. He'd still need a senior, but only for resonant materials, not for the general upgrade. There was a distinct difference between the design of an expert mech and the specialized parts that gave them what amounted to magic powers. (Yes that term was incorrect, Bolt was still going to call it magic because he was feeling petty at the moment.)

The two expert mechs his father had found were on the older side but still very relevant. About a decade old, they'd been buried underneath several tons of rocks and abandoned. Their location and circumstances were an old mech secret. Another mech would have been crushed so badly they'd be unrecoverable. These were still pretty bad, but they were something one could theoretically rebuild. It'd just be pointless, because expert mechs were explicitly made for their experts.

Bolt had a sneaking suspicion that if he wanted to, he could use one to repair the other and have Lilly pilot it. The tests they'd done had shown that she resonated with a lot of materials. She tested negative for a lot as well, but these two were made of types she could use. At least theoretically. He wasn't an expert and was just going off what the tests said.

His first observation was that even ten years old, these things were still advanced beyond anything else he'd worked with. One was a pure swordsman. The other was what looked to be a striker. Discounting the exotic components, they'd still be able to absolutely trash any mechs on the field just based on performance.

Each mech was laced with exotics. They had state of the art components that were still advanced compared to today. The material cost alone was ten times what a normal mech would have. All of this was synched and aligned with what Bolt assumed to be the dead pilot. These were custom pieces worth fortunes alone, and a prize even ruined.

It was an investment that they couldn't match yet. They were making money at the moment. They were not making that much money. It'd take about a year to afford to make an expert mech from scratch, assuming they kept up sales. If Bolt dipped into his and Lilly's savings, they could probably afford the plans and components right now. It would bring their savings to near zero though. It was a suboptimal action that would have to be a last resort, and one that he hoped to avoid.

Bolt hoisted the dead mechs up on the bay. Sitting there, they looked defeated. A far cry from what they had been. These were failures in one sense of the word. Dead bodies. All of the tech in the world, and now their worth only laid in the materials they held and the lessons he could wring from them. It was hard to be optimistic in front of such grim reminders, but Bolt was. Surprisingly so. This reminded of him when he was a kid actually.

Armor first, as always. Carefully prying it apart was harder than it sounded. The metal had warped from the weight that the mechs had been placed under. Dirt and small stones were still lodged in some areas. Some of the welds and screws required power tools to pry loose. It was all advanced stuff and custom alloys as well. Deliberately design choices to maximize what the designer had felt would best compliment the pilot. It was non-standard and very difficult to pull off without causing further damage.

The striker's most carefully made part was its weapon. Bent and broke, this had been someone's specialty. There were a few lessons in it even as ruined as it was. Bolt could see the dedication and lines in the shotgun's form. It had been someone's baby in design, but not in creation. The assembler had been methodic in a professional way.

That pattern continued for the mech. It was Vesia, he could tell this without looking at the history. None of the telltale missiles, but there were certain patterns common in their designs. They used specific screws at certain internal joins and threaded cables in a rather distinct pattern. Alloy choices were another tell, though not a certain one. There was a strange mix of attention to detail and clinical manufacturing in the creation of this mech. One of the designers had explicitly focused on how the little details added up into something big that the manufacturers hadn't followed as precisely as the design required. It was an intriguing flaw that he wasn't even sure the main designer knew of.

Amusingly the shotgun had fared better. Looking it over in comparison, the vision had come through with more clarity. While they'd both been made by the same hands, the shotguns vision had just required appropriate power and throughput. The shotgun was obviously done by the junior designer. It'd been done properly by the manufacturers. Three hands had handled the mech and it had made a mess that was only apparent in the end.

Maudlin thoughts aside, ripping it all apart showed him what an expert mech really meant. It wasn't just cost. It was optimization using money and exotic resources. No expense was spared and everything was aligned to the pilot. The weapon went above and beyond. The armor was exquisite. This was a weapon of war made double.

Bolt added a few mental changes to that design he carried in his head still. He still wanted a proper expert mech for Lilly, and he'd use this to fuel that plan further. She'd likely want to keep Dowry, but that mech was limited and would become more so as time would progress. She needed a proper one.

Left with parts and destroyed dreams, Bolt looked over the destroyed expert mech and then wrote down his notes and observations. He'd learned some, but not enough. He moved onto the other one. The swordsman. This would tell him more.

The swordsman mech was an Empties mech. You could tell that just based off the crosses in a few areas. It had been with holy fervor. The construction was close to perfect, with only a few flaws here and there because their enthusiasm had overcome their technical skill. The user had used a two handed sword that could be set aflame. The sword hadn't survived intact, and the entire length was ruined. Bolt could see the concept, and the power. It was very likely that was what it had led to the mech's doom.

He could trace the damage between the two and see the battle as he stripped the armor and the parts. The striker had gone first. He'd unloaded every weapon into the Swordsman, and it'd done nothing. Then he'd activated something, and they'd moved. Steady chipping and damaging to his opponent, and then they'd entered the cave. The Swordsman had caught up then. He'd struck once, twice, and the Striker had brought down the entire cave on them. Perhaps he assumed he'd be able to leave before the end? Bolt couldn't say an expert would cause such an amateur mistake as to kill himself accidentally in a cave-in.

The design itself was interesting as a contrast. They both used money to get the best performance. The design ethos was different. The sword had been everything for that mech. Every, single, part of it had been focused on making the weapon swing better. There was no subtly to that sort of design. There was no loss in focus. The only concession was a single weapon in the head of all things. That laser was meant to hinder mechs that kept at a range, that was it. There were four designers involved in it, but one real lead. The rest were just there to optimize the sword.

Now, the question came, how did Bolt apply this? Could he upgrade Dowry? Should he? These were good questions that he had to answer. He had to figure out what would be optimal. No one else in this mountain could decide. He could just replace the mechs parts again. They had experience in it by this point. It'd be almost as costly as building a new mech though.

Yet a wild idea came to him as he thought it over. Didn't Dowry just adjust herself internally? The nanomachine core that he'd put in was highly versatile after all. He'd been sort of lowballing the system in the initial creation to keep cost down. The system itself was meant to be a dynamic nanomachine factory. The recent self adjustment the mech had done made him think that he could push that system more. The only reason it'd been so restricted was the lack of exotics to fuel it. He had those materials available in the form of the disassembled mechs right in front of him... Recycling things was an old hat. He'd really just need to process these mechs and adjust the programming some wouldn't he? A lot of the theoretical work was already proven.

Putting thought into practice was easy. Having Dowry brought in was just a matter of getting a few techs to bring the mech over. Placing a few parts in the processor and adjusting the programming was also relatively simple. Bolt wasn't trying to change the process. He was trying to have the mech upgrade itself. Most of the changes were already there. Lilly could resonate with these materials. He just needed to get them laced into Dowry's systems using the nanomachines.

Concept wise it was easy. Implementation wise it was extremely difficult. This was slow, painstaking work. Bolt had to program each change, feed a minute portion of the exotics into the processor, watch the change, and then adjust as needed. In a way it was getting back to the mech's roots. Dowry had started off as different parts as Ghoul. They'd unified her design, but her original design had always been a bit of a mishmash. Now he was adding more things. The blackbox programs helped here and there. Bolt was able to pick them apart and refine them as he worked and watched them in action. There were still one or two left once he was done, but he was happy to say most of it was leashed now. (This was a very good thing. Machine learning had a tendency to go into suboptimal or dead end solutions if it wasn't directed.)

Dowry still wasn't a complete expert mech, but she was pretty close when he was finished. He still needed to select a resonant material to give her that extra oomph for when she needed it. Lilly could use the mech without breaking her now though, and Bolt was fairly sure that she could eat expert mechs to repair and upgrade herself further. Which would probably make things a bit weird when it happened.

For now he kept that under wraps and wouldn't put it in the documentation. So far as the outside world was concerned, Bolt had just upgraded her with salvaged parts. He'd tell Lilly, but he wouldn't write it down anywhere. Some things needed to be kept secret. Let people think he'd half assed the upgrade. No one needed to know the truth.

 

[lost star]

Wedding traditions varied extensively based off local planetary culture. For the people of the planet they called Rust Bucket, it was very simple. The couple shared a room and said they were married. Sometimes there was a party before or after. If they were very formal they had someone who handled religious matters bless them. The traditions were typically survive first, stick with the person you had kids with, and don't be a damned asshole to your family.

Bolt and Lilly had already made their promises in private. The party they had afterwards was not for them or their family. It was for politics. It was probably the largest native party in decades as well, and it had a little under five hundred people attending it. Most of those attendees were just support structure for the main leaders of each faction attending. It wasn't like there was a functional high class on the planet for the locals. The Wrench Rats would explicitly deny being 'high class.' Their recent fortune non-withstanding, they worked and bled for a living.

At the very least Bolt's family had been able to host something resembling respectable to the attendees. Thanks to the MTA's remodeling, they did have a proper ball room, and a food production facility that matched anything modern. They even had something special! It would have sounded very strange to people not in the know, but they were serving rations.

The obliquus rations came from a standard technology that was free of charge to download and build. They could be made from any sort of organic matter, and could be printed out with practically no resources. Food scarcity was very rare in this day and age. The MTA and CFA were frankly massive dictators that held humanity in a stranglehold, but they had explicitly tried to guarantee a few things with mass proliferations of specific technologies. The rations were one of those creations. They were best described as small miracles in specialized packages. Each one could last forever, and they aged spectacularly. They were a cornerstone to a surprisingly large amount of infrastructure, especially in space.

It was also not a lie to state that older ration packs were valuable. They were akin to old wines and cheeses in a way. A ten year old ration pack tasted better than a new made one, and the taste for century old ones was reportedly divine. This meant it wasn't uncommon to have little vaults here and there with the things in them. Not only were they solid time scaling investments, they were useful in an emergency!

The Wrench Rats had paid for and opened one of the fifty year old vaults for this party. It was an actual impressive display of wealth in a way. Everyone non-native considered it a fine thing to have for a party like this. The natives knew the more bitter truth of them. Old vaults were old because the previous owner had died for some reason. There was a grim and rarely said truth in serving the older stuff. They were very likely serving a dead person's last resort. Not that any of the rats would tell anyone attending the party that. The locals did know some things didn't need to be said. There were some attitudes that were strange and different even for them.

What wasn't different was the way things had to be arranged. As the main leading force behind this sort of thing Bolt and Lilly had to be front and center. Dressed in something rather gaudy that blended several styles together, they were both smiling and greeting the guests as if they wanted to be there. It was pretty obvious they didn't, but it was also obvious they were making an effort. That was enough for the attendees. (Some sympathized, but also knew this was a prime chance to make connections.)

Bolt was not social. He was probably the opposite of social. He'd answer things straight out if asked and didn't care to look into motives. Lilly was perhaps too social on contrast. She could pick apart a person's motivations with a few words and her conversations were either vapid as she put on airs, or too penetrating. Frankly it should have made the party a disaster, but the two of them had managed to play off one another and as an expert, Lilly was actually given more than a few allowances.

Most of what they did was greet and exchange information. Banal, boring, and predictable. A few conversations stood out. One was with Venerable Shin.

"You know, it is not common for experts to get married." The expert noted after introductions. He glanced at Bolt with an inquisitive eye, trying to find what drew the girl to him. "Especially not to designers. We travel in very different fields."

"You'd think it'd be more, not less." Lilly observed and hugged her now husband's arm with a warm expression.

Shin shook his head in a negative. "No, we as a group tend to be dedicated to piloting and nothing else. Long hours in the cockpit, risky missions, and so on. Likewise designers hone their logic and try to divorce themselves from emotion as they spend hours inside a lab. I cannot see your marriage lasting, if you'll forgive my rudeness, but at the same time I hope it succeeds. It is a contradiction I apologize for inflicting on you."

"I choose what I want." Lilly rebutted with words that she considered an immutable fact.

"If I'm inside a lab all day I get antsy." Bolt's response was less certain but more matter of fact. "Also, that logic thing is some strange mindset fashion, not a requirement." At least based off what he'd seen for designers. Bolt made a face as he recalled what he'd heard of it. "Can't say I like it. Feels less like logic and more slaving yourself to a religion that you made up."

Shin let out a small laugh and shook his head. "That is a way of seeing it, but let us not bring down the occasion more. Lilly, some of the moves you made were inspired. Bolt, your mech designs are still very rough, but the potential there is apparent. I very much look forward to seeing more." The expert gave a small bow to them both.

The conversation moved onto the various tactics Lilly had used. Bolt himself couldn't follow most of the discussion, but he got the general gist. Lilly had both gotten lucky and played her luck the best she could in the situation. Dowry's specific configuration had made it all possible though, and apparently Shin wanted a few mechs with her design. Bolt didn't see a reason not to create a production variant of Ghoul, but he also didn't want to commit to anything at a party either. Fortunately Shin didn't press, and then they moved on.

After some time Bolt and Lilly split off to speak with people in a more individual fashion. Bolt ended up speaking with the sole senior mech designer at the party, Travis. The older man was a sharp contrast to Chen. He didn't put on airs and was remarkably normal in behavior. Snacking on a few non-ration refreshments and keeping out of the way of most of the others.

"We're very likely going to work together soon." Travis didn't spend time on small talk. "I know for a fact my Lord is speaking with your father about a trade of sorts. I'll be working on your Dowry and likely Cerberus."

Bolt felt his eyebrows raise and he nodded slowly. "That seems 'bout right. I've progressed Dowry best I could, but I don't know resonant materials."

"You wouldn't. It requires senior and above." The senior designer responded simply and with little care. "The big thing we need is a proper resonating material, but I believe there's already one that we can use that's known to work with ASMAS and your pilot. It will allow for rapid repair and refinement and should work with the existing design with minimal adjustments and is relatively cheap, which will be needed because the ASMAS is a hungry thing when used."

That sounded relatively simple and would fit with the existing theme. "I don't see why we wouldn't use it then."

"I'll forward you the details and what I'll need. Expect it to take a few hours. Frankly, were it an expert I'm working with I'd insist on having more involvement, but these are unusual circumstances." Travis wiped his fingers off on a napkin and set his plate down. "Cerberus will take more of my time. You will be providing a good fifty of them to us, and I'm explicitly being ordered to focus on that."

"We're selling them already?" Bolt asked with surprise.

"Negotiations are ongoing, but that is within my predictions. Put very bluntly, Lord Selah despises you and your family. He will work with you out of self interest anyway. He' rather predictable in many ways." Travis laced his fingers in front of himself as he spoke. "I will be leaving his service within the year, so this does not harm me by saying it. You are a promising young designer with a unique look on mech design and a lot of potential. This will make you enemies. Be prepared for it."

"Ah." Bolt breathed out. That was quite the obvious warning. It was also not surprising. "I'm hoping that we can do that." He answered eventually in lieu of something better.

"Also keep in mind that Vesia is not united despite the face it shows to others. Your father likely knows this. He managed to get this party arranged after all. Despite how it looks, this is a rather impressive feat. He has leverage that I'm not aware of." Travis gave a shrug and began to walk off. "We will speak more on mech design later. It would not be appropriate to get into it here and now."

Bolt was looking forward to that. He was not looking forward to anything else. The future did not seem good despite the recent victories. Not that it had looked rosy before, but it was one thing to know that and another to be almost blatantly told you'd be in a war in a few years. Then again, that wasn't really new. The planet had always known war.

His grim thoughts were stopped from spiraling by Lilly. In this case it was because she'd gathered together a few pilots and was talking about something relevant to both of them. Expeditions. Getting money.

"Travel time is one issue, but the big one isn't that. It's finding your niche and exploiting it." One of the pilots was in the middle of an explanation. "Most mercs specialize. It's kind of like hunting or fishing. You look for the best prey that has the least amount of hunters around."

"Yeah, and what would Lilly's specialization be?" Another pilot asked with amusement as he gestured to the woman. "Building from the ground up is nice in that you can decide what you want, but you also have to build from the ground up."

"Thinking scavenging actually." The expert pilot gave her input casually.

The other pilots made a few noises of confusion. "Why?" Was the question.

"Bolt's family specializes in that." Lilly explained as Bolt came up and she pulled him close. "Also, we got the technical knowhow for that! Just need a good spot for an early payday! And probably the ships to get there and back."

"You can hire them till you get an in house group. Ain't that expensive if it's nearby." One of the men advised and then exchanged looks with the others. "Closest thing that comes to mind is the Cold Grave. You all remember that?"

"Ooooh." Came various groans of disgust.

"Cold Grave?" Lilly asked the obvious question with a cute head tilt and wide eyes.

"Nasty, nasty place. Non-experts get issues after a few days and can go mad after a few weeks. Got loads of graveyards. Was an old alien battlefield. You still get people trying for it cause the MTA and CFA lost ships there and there's rumors of them still being hidden there." Someone explained. "It's actually kinda close because of this planet's quirks. Anyone actually been there?"

"I have. Lasted two days before we started hearing whispers and pulled out. Colder than the icy hells, with barren halls big enough for mechs to walk through. Deep tunnels and some twisted architecture that really makes it hard to map." A man spoke up with a distant look. "We saw some ruins from old expeditions, but didn't have an expert to ward off the madness so couldn't get much. Had to fight some stone monster things. Apparently old alien defenses. Weren't much to speak about, but they didn't add to the welcome."

It was a lead that Lilly focused on immediately. Bolt couldn't say he liked the implication, but at the same time it would theoretically work. That was assuming they could get the manpower and transportation for it.